This invention relates to the sharpening of pointed tools and objects such as scribers and punches, and fish hooks. Pointed tools are ordinarily given a reasonably sharp point when they are manufactured, but they usually become dull during usage and require honing to restore their sharpness. Also, skilled fishermen know that many more fish can be caught if the hooks they use have needle sharp points, but fish hooks are seldom manufactured with sufficiently sharp points.
Dull points have most often been sharpened manually with files, oilstones and grinding wheels. The points on scribers, punches and other relatively large tools can be sharpened on an electric bench grinder by spinning the tool manually against the flat side of the abrasive wheel, but great care must be taken to avoid overheating the extreme tip of the point so as to reduce its hardness. Also, the angle at which the point is held against the wheel and the speed at which it is rotated requires that the person doing the sharpening have a high degree of dexterity and experience. It is particularly difficult and time consuming to sharpen fish hooks. The shank tends to get in the way and under normal fishing conditions the light may be bad, the boat may rock, or the conditions encountered out of doors may be otherwise unfavorable for this task. The problems of honing fish hooks to a needle sharp point are compounded for treble hooks because of the difficulties in manipulating them. The result usually is that after a few tedious, time consuming, or unsuccessful efforts to get a needle sharp point, the fisherman gives up and fishes with dull hooks.